Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
DETAILED ACTION
This communication is in response to Applicant's response filed under 37 C.F.R. § 1.111 in response to a Non-Final Office Action. Claims 1-3, 8-14, 19, and 20 have been amended; No claims have been added or canceled. Claims 1-20 are subject to examination.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 06/12/2026, have been fully considered but they are not persuasive for the following reasons:
Applicant's Argument:
Applicant argues in substance that "However, Wang does not appear to teach (emphasis added) "DCI indicating an index in a list stored by the UE." ".
Examiner's Response:
The Examiner respectfully disagrees. The Wang reference teaches the limitations "the DCI indicating an index in a list stored by the UE ". Wang teaches in Par. 0082 and 0088 that “Assuming TDRA table has 3 rows for each cell, and one TDRA bit field in DCI applies to both Scell“ and “the scheduled cells by a single DCI and the TDRA table are indicated by a single bit field. For example, gNB configures L rows for TDRA table, and gNB configures a set of cells to be scheduled in each row.” Wang also teaches that that the gNB configures the TDRA table on the UE. In this regard, the Examiner would like to cite 2 pertinent arts as listed below:
Reference TRAN et al. (US 20230284233 A1) teaches FIG. 8 that shows an example of a new Time Domain Resource Assignment (TDRA) table indicating multi-TB scheduling for TRP/Panel transmission in Downlink (DL) Physical Downlink Shared Channel (PDSCH):
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Reference LIN et al. (US 20230224874 A1) teaches in Par. 0091 that “A TDRA list may include several items (or “entries” or “rows”), with each item indicating a set of resource-allocation-related parameters including at least one of an item index, a mapping type, a slot offset(s) (K1 and/or K2), a starting symbol (S), an allocation length (L), and the number of (nominal) repetitions.”
The claim merely recites “the DCI indicating an index in a list”, therefore the examiner contends that the bit field in DCI, in fact be interpreted as an index in a list (TDRA table, as shown in TABLE 1-4 of Wang). By this rationale, Wang teaches the limitations " the DCI indicating an index in a list stored by the UE”. Due to amendment, the rejection is updated. See rejection below. The Examiner advises the applicant to further define the DCI that schedules multi-PDSCH in multi-CC.
Regarding all other arguments presented by Applicant, the arguments are substantially the same as those which have already been addressed above and, in the interest of brevity, the Examiner directs Applicant to those responses above.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claim 1-3, 5-14, and 16-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wang et al. (Wang hereafter) (US 20230156704 A1) in view of XIONG et al. (XIONG hereafter) (US 20240204931 A1).
Regarding claim 1, claim 12, and claim 19, Wang teaches, A method, comprising:
receiving, by a User Equipment (UE), in a first Component Carrier (CC), a Downlink Control Information (DCI), the DCI scheduling a first Physical Downlink Shared Channel (PDSCH) in a second CC, and a second PDSCH in a third CC, the second CC and the third CC being different (Wang; Fig. 3A; gNB schedules PDSCH1 on Scell 1 and PDSCH 2 on Scell 2 by a single DCI, Par. 0081)
retrieving, based on the DCI indicating an index in a list stored by the UE (Wang; the scheduled cells by a single DCI and the TDRA table are indicated by a single bit field. For example, gNB configures L rows for TDRA table, and gNB configures a set of cells to be scheduled in each row, Par. 0088), a TDRA for the first PDSCH and a TDRA for the second PDSCH (Wang; TABLE 1-4 index 3 K1=1; Table 1-4 provides all possibilities for the TDRA & CC combination for each K1 value, Par. 0099), the list being configured to the UE (Wang; gNB configures L rows for TDRA table, Par. 0088), the list including allocation parameters associated with the index (Wang; the TDRA, Par. 0099), the allocation parameters including at least one of:
a PDSCH-to-physical UL control signal (PUCCH) timing (K1) (Wang; TABLE 1-4 K1=1, K1=2); or
a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) to physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) (PDCCH-to-PUSCH) timing (K2); and
receiving, by the UE, the first PDSCH, using time domain resources for PDSCH reception based on a retrieved TDRA for the first PDSCH (Wang; Fig. 3A; gNB schedules PDSCH1 on Scell 1 and PDSCH 2 on Scell 2 by a single DCI, Par. 0081).
Wang failed to explicitly teach,
the list being Radio Resource Control (RRC) configured.
However, in the same field of endeavor, XIONG teaches,
the list being Radio Resource Control (RRC) configured (XIONG; TDRA for multi-cell with multi-PDSCH/PUSCH scheduling … for time domain resource allocation (TDRA), a TDRA table may be configured by higher layers via higher layers via dedicated RRC signalling, Par. 0072).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to incorporate the teachings of Wang to include the use of RRC as taught by XIONG in order to configure TDRA (XIONG; Par. 0072).
Specifically for claim 12, A User Equipment (UE) comprising: one or more processors; and a memory storing instructions which, when executed by the one or more processors, cause performance of (Wang; UE, Par. 0088).
Specifically for claim 19, A User Equipment (UE) comprising: means for processing; and a memory storing instructions which, when executed by the means for processing, cause performance of (Wang; UE, Par. 0088).
Regarding claim 2, claim 13, and claim 20, Wang- XIONG teaches, The method of claim 1, The UE of claim 12, and The UE of claim 19 respectively, wherein a multi-carrier TDRA table is Radio Resource Control (RRC) configured to the UE by a network node (gNB) (Wang; gNB configures L rows for TDRA table, Par. 0088 & XIONG; for time domain resource allocation (TDRA), a TDRA table may be configured by higher layers via higher layers via dedicated RRC signalling, Par. 0072); and
the DCI includes a data assignment index (DAI) field associated with a PUCCH (Wang; To generate a HARQ-ACK codebook, there can be several different ways. One example is to generate HARQ-ACK codebook according to semi-statically configured parameters, e.g., HARQ-ACK feedback timing K1 set ... Counter Downlink Assignment Index (C-DAI) and Total DAI (T-DAI) in the DCI, Par. 0032; PUCCH carrying HARQ-ACK feedback, Par. 0035).
The rational and motivation for adding this teaching of XIONG is the same as for Claim 1.
Regarding claim 3 and claim 14, Wang- XIONG teaches, The method of claim 1 and The UE of claim 12 respectively, wherein:
the DCI includes a K1 timing parameter; and
the method further includes transmitting, by the UE, a Physical Uplink Control Channel (PUCCH) corresponding to the first PDSCH and to the second PDSCH, a slot containing the PUCCH being determined, relative to a reference PDSCH of the first PDSCH and the second PDSCH, by the KI timing parameter (Wang; gNB schedules PDSCH1 on Scell 1 and PDSCH 2 on Scell 2 by a single DCI and indicates K1=2, reference PDSCH is PDSCH 2, Par. 0081).
Regarding claim 5 and claim 16, Wang- XIONG teaches, The method of claim 3 and The UE of claim 14 respectively, wherein the reference PDSCH is the PDSCH, of the first PDSCH and the second PDSCH, having the latest ending symbol (Wang; The reference PDSCH can be determined according to … a PDSCH with last-ending symbol among PDSCHs scheduled by the multi-cell scheduling DCI, Par. 0041-0042).
Regarding claim 6 and claim 17, Wang- XIONG teaches, The method of claim 3 and The UE of claim 14 respectively, wherein:
the first PDSCH is received, by the UE, on a CC associated with the first PDSCH;
the second PDSCH is received, by the UE, on a CC associated with the second PDSCH and having a higher CC index than the CC associated with the first PDSCH; and
the reference PDSCH is the first PDSCH (Wang; The reference PDSCH can be determined according to … a PDSCH with lowest or largest serving cell index among PDSCHs scheduled by the multi-cell scheduling DCI, Par. 0041-0051).
Regarding claim 7 and claim 18, Wang- XIONG teaches, The method of claim 3 and The UE of claim 14 respectively, wherein:
the first PDSCH is received, by the UE, on a CC associated with the first PDSCH;
the second PDSCH is received, by the UE, on a CC associated with the second PDSCH and having a higher CC index than the CC associated with the first PDSCH; and
the reference PDSCH is the second PDSCH (Wang; The reference PDSCH can be determined according to … a PDSCH with lowest or largest serving cell index among PDSCHs scheduled by the multi-cell scheduling DCI, Par. 0041-0051).
Regarding claim 8, Wang- XIONG teaches, The method of claim 1, wherein:
the DCI includes a serving cell combination index (Wang; Table 1-4 provides all possibilities for the TDRA & CC combination for each K1 value, Par. 0099); and
the method further includes retrieving, based on the serving cell combination index, from a serving cell combination table stored by the UE, an identifier of the first CC and an identifier of the second CC (Wang; TABLE 1-2; With the CC combination indication, SLIVs for the indicated CCs are used for PDSCHs for each indicated CC. Therefore, for a serving cell i, only i-th SLIV which is configured for the serving cell i for each row in TDRA table belong to the set of SLIVs, Par. 0115 & XIONG; the scheduled cells and TDRA are jointly coded in the DCI, Par. 0078).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to incorporate the teachings of Wang to include the use of DCI as taught by XIONG in order to indicate scheduled cells (XIONG; Par. 0078).
Regarding claim 9, Wang- XIONG teaches, The method of claim 1,
wherein the DCI includes: a first Frequency Domain Resource Allocation (FDRA) field for the first PDSCH; and a second FDRA field for the second PDSCH (XIONG; separate FDRA fields in the scheduling DCI may be used to indicate the FDRA for different cells or CCs for multi-cell with multi-PDSCH and PUSCH scheduling, Par. 0068).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to incorporate the teachings of Wang to include the use of FDRA as taught by XIONG in order to schedule multi-cell PDSCHs (XIONG; Par. 0068).
Regarding claim 10, Wang- XIONG teaches, The method of claim 1,
wherein the DCI includes: a first redundancy value (RV) field for the first PDSCH; and a second RV field for the second PDSCH (XIONG; in the scheduling DCI, one or more fields may be applied for each scheduled PDSCH or PUSCH in different cells or CCs for multi-cell with multi-PDSCH/PUSCH scheduling … In one option, separate redundancy version (RV) and new data indicator (NDI) can be applied for each scheduled PDSCH and/or PUSCH in different cells or CCs, Par. 0056-0057).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to incorporate the teachings of Wang to include the use of separate RV as taught by XIONG in order to schedule multi-cell PDSCHs (XIONG; Par. 0057).
Regarding claim 11, Wang- XIONG teaches, The method of claim 1,
wherein the DCI includes: a first Modulation Coding Scheme (MCS) index field for the first PDSCH; and a second MCS index field for the second PDSCH (XIONG; when two-cell with multi-PDSCH/PUSCH scheduling is applied, two MCS fields can be included in the DCI, where each MCS field is used to indicate the MCS for the scheduled PDSCHs or PUSCHs in each cell, Par. 0054).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to incorporate the teachings of Wang to include the use of separate mcs as taught by XIONG in order to schedule multi-cell PDSCHs (XIONG; Par. 0054).
Claim 4 and 15 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wang- XIONG in view of DIMOU et al. (DIMOU hereafter) (US 20240137933 A1).
Regarding claim 4 and claim 15, Wang- XIONG teaches, The method of claim 3 and The UE of claim 14 respectively, wherein:
the DCI further includes a PUCCH resource indicator (PRI) (Wang; the multi-cell scheduling DCI format carrying … PUCCH resource indicator (PRI) for transmission of the HARQ-ACK feedback corresponding to each of the scheduled PDSCH group, Par. 0035).
Wang- XIONG failed to explicitly teach,
a symbol position of the PUCCH within the slot is determined by the PRI.
However, in the same field of endeavor, DIMOU teaches,
a symbol position of the PUCCH within the slot is determined by the PRI (DIMOU; the first downlink grant may include an indication. The indication may indicate an uplink channel resource indicator, such as a PRI. The indication may indicate a symbol timing between the first PDSCH transmission and a transmission of HARQ feedback associated with the first PUCCH transmission, Par. 0068).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to incorporate the teachings of Wang- XIONG to include the use of PRI as taught by DIMOU in order to determine symbol timing (DIMOU; Par. 0068).
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SHARMIN CHOWDHURY whose telephone number is (571)272-6419. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Tue 8:00 am - 5:00 pm; Wed 8 am - 12 pm.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Noel Beharry can be reached at 5712705630. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/SHARMIN CHOWDHURY/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2416
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